AI-generated stock image.
Fort Lauderdale, FL— Jurors Tuesday handed down a $350,000 verdict at trial against R.J. Reynolds for the heart disease death of a long-time Florida smoker. But they apportioned the lion’s share of responsibility to the smoker himself, likely slashing the post-verdict award. Palmieri v. R.J. Reynolds, CACE08019615.
The 17th Circuit Florida state court jury deliberated less than four hours before finding R.J. Reynolds and its cigarettes were responsible for Ralph Palmieri’s heart disease and 2002 death. However, the jury apportioned only 20 percent of responsibility to the tobacco company, assigning the remaining responsibility to Palmieri himself. That conclusion will likely reduce the post-verdict award to $70,000.
Palmieri was born in 1924, and his family says he began smoking as a teenager, smoking R.J. Reynolds-brand cigarettes among other varieties. Palmieri had a heart attack in 1992, and doctors then diagnosed him with heart disease, leading him to quit smoking that year. Palmieri’s children contend that Reynolds is responsible for their father’s heart disease and death by addicting him to cigarettes that the company knew were dangerous.
The case is one of thousands spun from Engle v. Liggett Group Inc., a Florida state court class-action lawsuit originally filed in 1994. After a trial victory for the class members, the state’s supreme court ultimately decertified the class, but ruled that so-called Engle progeny cases may be tried individually.
Engle progeny plaintiffs are entitled to the benefit of the jury's findings in the original verdict, including the determination that tobacco companies had placed a dangerous, addictive product on the market and hid the dangers of smoking, if they prove the smoker at the heart of the case suffered from nicotine addiction that was the legal cause of a smoking-related disease.
What drove Palmieri’s smoking decisions and who bore responsibility for those decisions served as key issues throughout the six-day trial. During Tuesday’s closings, the Palmieri family’s attorneys pointed to evidence that Palmieri was hooked on cigarettes, and Carlos Salazar, of The Law Offices of Richard J. Diaz, noted that Palmieri had been smoking for decades before the U.S. Surgeon General’s specific warning in the late 1980s that cigarette smoking was addictive. ‘It took him just four years to put [cigarettes] down after smoking 3-4 packs a day for 50 years,” Salazar told jurors, while suggesting that jurors might apportion up to 10 percent of responsibility to Palmieri.
But in their closing arguments, Reynolds attorneys pointed to evidence they said showed Palmieri was not addicted to nicotine, but smoked by choice. And King & Spalding’s Ursula Henninger told jurors that information concerning smoking’s dangers was widespread for decades before Palmieri ever tried to stop. “There is simply no evidence in this case that Mr. Palmieri wanted to quit before he did in 1992,” Henninger said.
Email Arlin Crisco at acrisco@cvn.com.
Related information
Not a subscriber?
Learn how you can access an unrivaled trial video library.